


Ripple Effect

by Thatkindghost



Series: Effects [2]
Category: DuckTales (Cartoon 2017)
Genre: Donald Duck Has Magic, Gen, Rewrite
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 21:54:41
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,823
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21802501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thatkindghost/pseuds/Thatkindghost
Summary: Donald can sense magic, and this... doesn't change much at all. (And then, all at once, it does.)Rewrite of the fanfiction Ripples (2017)
Series: Effects [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1571095
Comments: 23
Kudos: 300





	1. Chapter 1

His mother and father and his Uncle Scrooge talk about Gladstone sometimes, in hushed voices, about the way the world works for him. They spoke about Matilda too, when she came up. They called it Luck and nothing more, didn’t dare speak the M word for fear of giving it power. Donald is too young to know what they’re talking about, so he and Della are allowed to color at the kitchen table and not watch uncle Scrooge shift from foot to foot and wring his hands around his cane.

He is six and he shouldn’t understand but he does anyway, thinks about the subtle apprehension in the lines on his mother's face and the stifling sort of feeling he got when Gladstone was around- as if someone had draped a blanket around his shoulders, leaden and a little suffocating if he sat too long in his presence, and irritating his skin and nerves with something akin to sensory overload. The first time he has met Gladstone he had hated the feeling, snipped and snapped at his younger cousin until he got put into time out and pressed his head against the wall to try and block out the feeling. The sky is too big when Gladstone stands next to him, as if Donald is suddenly aware of how heavy the air above him sits.

He wonders if the tension in Scrooge's shoulders is because of the weight.

It doesn’t occur to him that no one else could feel the drag until much later. It's not something he realizes all at once, but more of a slow understanding creeping up the back of his neck. He understands in in the way Della smiles when she sees Gladstone. He understands it in the relaxed slope of her shoulders. He understands it in the way she breathes easy.

“Gladstone’s here.” he announces at her, once, while they're both in their shared room and the tv is playing reruns of a black and white telenovela Della is entirely too wrapped up in.

She’s holding the remote loosely in her hands, doesn't even break her stare at the TV to look at him, “How do you know that?” shes asks, distracted, despite the overwhelming shroud making it impossible for him to finish his comic book. She probably didn’t even process what he said, responds on autopilot with a question more meaningful than she intends. Gladstone throws open the door and Donalds confusion dies with his annoyance, shelved for later that night when the tides recede. He thinks about it, in the darkness, and wonders at the information. It makes him feel… 

He feels special. Important.

He thinks of the furrow of his fathers eyebrows and the looks aimed at Gladstones back and feels less special and more scared. He thinks about how they were wary of Gladstone, the blanket of Something Gladstone carried with him, and he thinks about how he could feel it- and wonders what that means for him too? What was this? He is creeping on the edge of a breakthrough, or as much of one as an eleven year old could muster, before he decides suddenly that manifesting these thoughts in a tangible way promised that he would have to face what they meant.

He wants to pack it up, all haphazard and quick and messy, and shove it to the darkest corner of his mind, and hide it from everyone. He shouldn't, he knows this like he knew what the words his parents said all those years ago meant, but he tries anyway- to get rid of it completely, fear his motivator.

Gladstone opens the door to their room weeks later, back again to visit, and Donald jumps in surprise as the door bounces off the wall with how hard he’d thrown it open. Gladstone launched himself onto Dellas bed to start complaining about his day, and Donald… can’t feel anything. It scares him, deeply, but there’s no time to wonder about the emptiness in his chest before Della shoves Gladstone off her comforter and he decides Donalds bed is his next target.

When he meets Magica De Spell at sixteen years old she grabs whatever he hid in the recesses of his mind and drags it, kicking and screaming, out from its hiding place. Not intentionally, of course, though Donald wouldn’t be surprised if she could actually do that-

No, it's completely unconscious, but when she shows up to face Uncle Scrooge her magic tears through whatever feeble adolescent lock he had hidden it away with- and it hurt, almost enough to drive him to his knees, definitely enough to bring him to tears. She is nothing like Gladstone, not a solid blanket weight, she is like the roiling and turbulent waves of the ocean. She is overwhelming in a sharper, harsher way. Where Gladstone let his luck happen to him, Magica took her power by the horns and forced it to her bidding- she breaks it to her will, and her violence and her rage is reflected in the turmoil her magic batters him with.

He knows she is there before Scrooge and before Della, but it takes him too long to come to grips with the way she hurts him and he can’t warn them. The magic ripples in a fatal arc, something different and acidic and his spine screams DANGER- he has time to jump, and he pushes all three of them sideways, to the floor, before the bolt of lightning can fry Uncle Scrooge on the spot. He slides sideways, Della flails in her surprise and shoves him by accident, he conks his head on the ground with a scary _thunk_ and his brain rattles. It dazes him too long, and when he finally comes back, scrambles to his feet, Della and Uncle Scrooge have already taking fighting positions and are talking smack. Which, unfair, Donald loved trash talk (he was allowed to cuss out the beagle boys sometimes-)

“Magica De Spell!” Scrooge snarls, recognition flashing in his eyes, “Here to try and steal my number one dime again?”

“I don’t do try, you Christmas Story extra!” Magica snaps, “I’ll get that coin!”

She feels like a cartoon super villain, dressed in black and spouting silly insults before her attacks. Donald can almost imagine sinister piano music swelling as the two rivals throw verbal barbs- he knows without a shadow of a doubt, that underestimating her will cost him his life. She throws her magic carelessly and, if he hadn’t felt the warning signs and ducked quick enough, she would have taken his head off. He doesn't think for a second that wasn’t her intention. She rips the ancient temple apart in her fervent need to destroy Scrooge McDuck, and suddenly Donalds not dodging her Lighting strikes but pieces of rubble raining down around him-

The waves of her magic shudder and swell, and a pulse bigger than all the rest slams out from her like a tsunami and Donald feels his heart jack hammer in his chest, wild fear at what she was gearing up for next- before she simply _vanishes out of existence_. She takes the turbulence with her, and the endless, deafening silence makes Donald want to throw up and faint and maybe cry with relief all at the same time, His head pounds from the assault, but there’s no time to worry about that as Uncle Scrooge grabs his wrist and drags him out of the temple before it really does fall apart directly onto his head.

Uncle Scrooge laments the loss of the treasure, of course, because it's Uncle Scrooge and that's what he does, only for Della to reveal she’d stowed the ancient disk in her jacket the moment things started getting dicey.

“We should go, we don’t know if she’s still around here.” Della nods, throwing a glance over her shoulder as if Magica will appear there like some shoddy horror movie jump scare.  
  
“She’s gone.” Donald is sure of it in the same way he was sure his cousin was at the door all those years ago, holding his head in his hands and trying to blink away the sharp rawness of his mind.  
Scrooge shakes his head, “Della is right, we can’t be sure-” he glances at Donald, his concern reflected on Dellas face, “-and home sounds pretty good right now.”

Uncle Scrooge talks quietly on the ride home, about Magica mostly and his history with her when Della prods. A powerful witch, obviously, who needed his number one dime for a spell.

“For riches,” He muses quietly, “Or at least, something valuable.”

Donald only half listening, too busy trying not to think about how he had known what she was doing before she did it. He tried to ignore it for five years. It seems he’d finally run out of time to hide, and now he had to confront what this was, what this _really_ was.

Magic.

He knows almost immediately that he’s done something, that even thinking it somehow made it more real, more tangible, and it scared him to the bone. Now he has to make a choice, something more permanent that shoving it away for later- either he figured out how to get rid of it long term, or he embraced it. Both options made his skin crawl.

“All that stuff she was doing, the magic...” Della ran a hand through her hair, brows furrowed, “How is that possible?”

“Don’t go poking that bear,” Uncle Scrooge snaps, shoulder tight, and Della jumps back slightly. He sighs, deflates, “Magic is not something to be trifled with-” he starts again, gentler this time, “ _Nothing good can come of it._ You saw the destruction she caused today. Besides, if either of you had a knack for it, you’d have presented by now.”

It’s not an answer, Donald knows it’s not the one Della was looking for, but after their Uncles outburst she was smart enough to leave it alone. Donald curses his luck- off all the times for Della to wise up and let it go... The pilot informs them of their descent and, slowly, they finally arrived home.

Donald sits at dinner that night, painkillers his appetizer and ice pack to his head because both his companions were convinced he had a concussion despite barely hitting his head, and pushed the mashed potatoes around his plate. He couldn’t get Uncle Scrooge's words out of his head… Nothing but trouble. It was nothing but trouble. He thinks about Magica and the way she twisted and twisted and _twisted_ until she broke her power down to its basic parts, how she destroyed it and used it for her own gain, how she was cruel and sharp and careless.

He goes to bed early, lays on top of the covers and stares at the ceiling.

He could use his power for good, couldn’t he? Not every witch could be evil, right?

_Nothing but trouble._

He packs it up, one more time, this time nice and neatly and as small as he can make it. He places it back, in the darkness and far into the deepest points of his consciousness, behind a closed door. He locks it shut and throws away the key. He opens his eyes and it’s morning time, sunlight filtering through the slit between his curtains, and the ache in his brain has eased. Sometimes he thinks _you were fire and sunshine once_ , and sometimes he thinks _you are low tide now, drawing away from the people who could love you._

And sometimes he thinks _you have hurt yourself in a way you’ll never understand._

And sometimes, all the time, he thinks _it’s better this way. It is. I promise._

It works, of course it works because Donald had been meticulous, had crafted it so clinically it wouldn’t so much as shudder beneath the onslaught of Magicas brutality ever again. He will never use his magic again, that’s his promise to himself, reinforced by the brick and mortar he builds around whatever magic had begun to blossom in his chest. He will never use his magic, and he breaks that promise the day the Spear of Selene disappears into the stars.

There’s an almost poetic sort of violence to the way he tears his walls apart, the absolute whirlwind of rage and fear and desperate pleading despair as his hands shake and his eyes water and he begs whatever scraps of magic he’d buried so deeply inside himself to rouse, to help, to save her- please-!

No matter how much he prays, no matter how much he searches within himself for pieces that were never there, he cannot muster the power to bring her back. He doesn't _have_ the power to bring her back.

All he’s ever had is the push and pull of the waves, the tide crashing against his skin, the weight of the ocean settling on his shoulders- and even now, with no other magic users to flood his sense, he feels _nothing._ Empty, hollow, his life poured out like water and vanished into the trenches, the absence of light. Grief destroys him and hangs him out to dry. He’s is weak and raw and vulnerable. His defenses crumble, and he doesn’t feel a need to build them ever again. He doesn’t care what Scrooge thinks anymore. He doesn’t care what _anyone_ thinks.

Life moves on.

Eventually, Donald lets go, and realizes he’s allowed to move on too.

He would have never thought he’d be here again, especially not with the triplets in tow- but life has always been cruel to him, enough to land him back under the same roof as his Uncle. He’s more coherent this time around than the last few times he’d been beneath the Manors roof, those memories stained with the loss of his sister, and it’s only now that he realizes… his magic, his ability, hadn’t truly abandoned him. He can feel the minute flux of power from Uncle Scrooge’s spoils, cursed gauntlets and enchanted necklaces leaking their magic into the house and sliding along his senses like a cold breeze shuffling his feathers. He finds, strangely, his favorite place in the house is the garage- magic swirling and undulating in the air, static charged and unfamiliar and _thrilling_. In the long bouts of quiet while everyone is off on adventures he couldn’t stomach anymore, he sits in the garage and tests his ability, playing and trying new things. It's exhilarating and freeing in a way he didn’t know was possible all those years ago when shame and fear had dragged him away from his natural energy.

Just to be safe, though, he keeps it a secret.

Uncle Scrooge hated magic.

Which is why it is particularly peculiar when he feels Lena the moment she steps onto the manors perfectly manicured grass, and no one else seems to mind her presence.

It’s morning time, too early for Donald to be awake unless he’d never slept at all, and his fingers still on the coffee pot when he begins to feel the familiar blanket cascading across his shoulders- not Gladstone, no, but magic. Powerful magic. Uneasily, he brews a pot of coffee, and waits to see perhaps what the approaching power has in store for him and his family. He’s just finished pouring himself a cup when the kids stumble in, worn out and tired, with Mrs. Beakley and Launchpad trailing after them- and there, right there, is the source of the magic descending over the manor. She’s a teenager, thirteen at the most, with the ends of her hair dyed pink, and a grey striped sweater, and blue button up that didn’t quite hide the black necklace band resting around her neck. An amulet, then? Something imbued with powerful magic? Something no one else knew about.

The children were supposed to be out to a movie and then to a ghost walk downtown, as Louie had so graciously called and informed him. Donald wasn’t quite sure he believed that, but Beakley hadn’t called to tell him otherwise and Louie hadn’t sounded like he was in trouble… plus, he reasoned, with two adults with them, how much trouble could the children get in to?

The answer was a lot, as Deweys spirited sleepy recap informs him.

He makes pancakes because they all look like they need it, and because he’s already up, and because he likes to make pancakes. They all change, get into pajamas, but slowly and certainly the promise of food and the smell of breakfast (or late dinner?) slowly cajole them all into the dining room where Donald serves them with a disapproving frown. The boys seem sheepish, shrinking under their Uncles look because- well, they’d lied, and that was bad. Picking his battles, Donald lets it go, albeit reluctantly as he sits down and fixes a plate for himself.

It’s only now that Webby seems to realize Donald and Lena haven’t been formally introduced, “Mr. Duck, this is Lena! She’s my best friend.” she motions to the girl who seems, for a moment, like a deer caught in the headlights.

He smiles, eyeing her critically. He’d already decided when he first laid eyes on her she wasn’t much of a threat, even with the magic she’d had with her- Lena liked Webby, genuinely, and Donald doubted she’d do anything to jeopardize their friendship, “Hello Lena, it’s nice to meet you.” Donald offers.

Lena leans back a little bit, and nods while shooting Webby an unsubtle look of confusion. Webby leans over and puts her hand to her mouth, stage whispering, “He said _hello_ and that it’s _nice_ to _meet you_.”

Nodding in earnest now Lena shoots him a cool smile, “Any friend of Webbys is a friend of mine.” He gets the distinct impression she doesn’t mean that, but decides to go back to his pancakes rather than start a fight with a thirteen year old.

He breathes in and out slowly, letting the magic wash over him. Something cold begins to trickle down the back of his spine as he realizes the magic, the way it feels, is _familiar_. It doesn’t behave like Magica’s power- it doesn’t pulse or beat like hers, no, it’s a steady thrum, as if it’s always radiating a spell that Lena may not even realize she’s casting. Slowly, it begins to grate on him, digging into his skin, sensory overload he hasn’t felt in years, as if the sky is too big when Lena stands near him.

No one else notices the weight, and no one notices when he can’t bring himself to eat anymore and sits back in his chair, trying and failing not to glance at the teen every few seconds.

He magic pulses suddenly and he stills- she’s taking a bit of pancake, smiling at Webby, innocent.

He feels the waves hit him, a spell, _what was she casting?_ Her magic shudders again, behind him this time, panic blooms up his throat.

He turns to face it, _DANGER_ pulsing in the base of his spine and making his eyes wide-

There’s nothing there except a long shadow.


	2. Chapter 2

He sits out in the garage more often than he’d care to admit, breathing with the flow of magic emanating from his Uncle’s spoils. Surrounding himself with magic, no matter how dark and cold, always feels natural- like something he doesn’t realize he’s missing until he’s entrenched in it all over again. He doesn’t ache for it, when he’s away, but he does find the tension in his shoulders easing when he sits cross-legged on the concrete and half-meditates in the stillness.

He doesn’t touch anything, and he doesn’t take anything either, no matter how badly he wants to set some enchanted trinket by his hammock and let it settle his sleep. Uncle Scrooge would notice, and Donald had not lived his whole life being so careful to throw it all away for a pseudo security blanket. He’s content to sit here and just feel it, when he can, because that’s all he can do anyway.

Except, no, it’s really not.

They go and see Gladstone, and really it shouldn’t be any sort of surprise that it all comes back full circle to him, because Gladstone was incredibly skilled at making  _ everything _ about him, even without knowing it.

They take the plane (and Donald’s still not quite used to Launchpad’s… landings) to whatever casino his cousin had plopped himself down in and was currently bleeding dry- which was strange almost, that this place had apparently missed the memo about keeping one supernaturally lucky Gladstone Gander out, and hadn’t kicked him to the curb yet. Stranger even, that Gladstone- who’d never been on the wrong side of anything in his life- would call for help. Donald had half convinced himself the only reason Gladstone had insisted they come out to visit him was to rub his fortune in Donald’s face, and the other half… well, this didn’t quite smell right.

Reluctantly, he let the kids tag along. No, taking the children to a casino wasn’t Donald's first choice, but the other option would be to leave them alone at the manor. with lots of supernatural paraphernalia and lots of ways to get into trouble… and if his kids could do anything, it’s get into trouble.

The point is, he’s not sure what’s waiting for them at House of the Lucky Fortune.

What he’s not expecting at all is to walk through the doors and feel the magic snap around him like a glove. He stumbles at the sensation, as if wading through a thick swamp that catches and drags at his feathers, and he’s so alarmed he actually goes to say something, to expose himself, before the feeling vanishes, as if he’s passed through some sort of… magic barrier? He turns around and finds, inexplicably, that the doors are closed neatly- as if they’d never been opened at all.

He reaches out to touch before he can think better, half expecting them to vanish before he reaches them, but uncle Scrooge snaps at him before he can make contact, “Och, Donald! Come on, no need to turn tail yet. the sooner we get this over with the sooner we’ll be on our way to the temple.” and when he turns he finds his family had nearly left him behind.

Half a second of hesitation and he’s joining them, brushing off his worry. He’d never set foot in a casino before, not with his luck, for all he knows they all had a magic barrier. Probably to keep cheaters out- he frowns sharply. How had Gladstone been allowed in? His luck probably let him slide under the radar? This didn’t make sense- and neither did the ever growing weight on his shoulders, as if each step he took into the neon lights and slot machines shrouded him further in magic.

Riding up the elevator, Donald blinks in surprise when he starts to feel the familiar thrum of Gladstones magic barely past floor 40. It wasn’t like the muted buzz of their youth, but more akin to Magica's pulsing magic where it beat in time with his heart. It was stronger now, perhaps since he’d had time to unconsciously hone it, and it hummed almost out of sync with the magic Donald knew the casino was full of, as if it existed on a different frequency. The closer they get, however, the two different magics start to bleed into one another, as if connected.

Donald doesn’t understand any of this at all.

But when he hears Gladstone shout he’s the first to burst through the door, already tense and ready for a fight- and when it turns out to be a false alarm, well, Donald can’t force himself to relax that easily even if Gladstone acts normally and gets on his every nerve in under two minutes. Donald doesn’t like this, and he doesn’t really like Gladstone, and he wants to  _ leave-  _ and because life is cruel, he ends up staying. Maybe he’s a little more snappy towards Gladstone than usual, and maybe it’s because Louie has very obviously picked a favorite Uncle that isn’t Donald and he’s a little jealous, but he also finds his temper rapidly shortening the longer he’s in the casino. The lights slowly go from warm and inviting to jarring, sounds grate on his ears, and his bad luck seems to be poisoning his every move more so than usual, as if any good luck he’d ever had vanished from beneath his skin.

And Gladstone’s magic batters him in waves, the ugly mix of his own and the casino’s rubbing his mind raw each time he pulls the lever on a slot machine.

Louie says, “Wow, you really can’t lose!” The second time Gladstone easily wins a car at a guessing game and Donald doesn’t really listen to Gladstones reply because he’s too busy seething and feeling like a failure or a fool, and he gives up. Louie is beaming from his seat in the car, and Donald is embarrassed and he finds himself… resigned to this. Maybe once he could have kept his rivalry with Gladstone with ease, but he can’t anymore, and this Casino makes him feel sick and weird and he doesn’t want to play along anymore.

Gladstone tries for a pep talk and say a lot of things, and then he says, “Your luck is bound to change!”

Donald can feel the pulse of Gladstone’s magic brush across his psyche, the wave so tangible it almost feels like he can touch it and Donald finds himself straightening and shooting Gladstone a challenging glare, “No,” He says evenly, on the edge of- of- _ something _ , “But maybe  _ yours _ will.”

Gladstone blinks in surprise, actually taking a step back- and then, oddly enough, a huge grin broke out across his face, “Now, that’s the spirit!” He grabs Donald and giddily hauls him to the nearest slot machine, grabbing the lever, “Let’s change my luck!” He laughs a bit manic.

Uncle Scrooge calls out to them from the entrance, something about finally getting out of that god-forsaken place altogether, and Louie tugs at Gladstone’s sleeve and the lights in this casino are blinding- Gladstone pulls the lever and his magic thrums and Donald balls his hands into a fist and says  _ no. No. Not this time _ . He grabs the familiarity of Gladstones magic and he holds it in his mind's eye, and with it comes the magic he’s melded with, and Donald forces it to stop.

There is no ripple wave of magic.

The casino flickers out of existence.

The people, the prizes, the lights and the sounds, all of it vanish into blackness- all that’s left are his family and Liu Hai- who seems shell-shocked and frozen, gaping as his casino blinks into darkness. Donald’s concentration breaks and everything snaps back into place, and Gladstone jerks- and then he lets go of Donald and books it while everyone’s trying to come to terms with what exactly just happened.

“Uncle Gladstone!” Louie cries, chasing after him and catching his sleeve, “Where are you going? I know that was weird but it’s the perfect time for us to hit the big winners tables-” Louie tries, not wanting to miss out on quality time with his Uncle or the possible winnings that could come with it.

Gladstone shakes him off, “I didn’t need you, I needed him!” And then he’s legging it again, but just before he can rush out the doors a glowing green shackle appears around his ankle and drags him to the floor with a thud, because apparently Liu Hai is a luck vampire that’s been using his magic to drain Gladstone of every ounce of Magic he could make- which means the fact that Donald could still feel his magic sorta even more impressive, considering it was being actively siphoned like a gogurt right out of him.

And that starts one of the longest nights of Donald's life, complete with life or death situations, screaming a tiger into spontaneously combusting,  _ beating glastone in a race (!!!) _ , and quite literally being used as a bargaining chip in the worlds worst game of poker.

When it’s all said and done and they’re standing on the docks, just a bit before they fly away and Gladstone buys a solid gold yacht and sails away, Huey says, “So what happened with the casino? Why’d everything go black?”

Uncle Scrooge open his mouth as if to school him, but no words come out as he abruptly realizes… that he doesn’t know.

Gladstone buts in, flapping his hand dismissively, “Well obviously it was your uncle Donald!” For half a second Donald thinks _ he knows _ and his heart nearly stops before Gladstone continues, “Only someone with monumental bad juju could cause my luck to fail. Who gets stuck with all the bad luck? No one but Donald Duck.”

They leave then, and Louie holds Donald's hand when they’re walking up to the Temple of the Golden Cricket, and Donald ends up carrying him to the plane after he falls asleep on the railing.

Donald doesn’t sleep on the flight home, staring restlessly out the window with his legs drawn up to his chest and rips and holes in his sailor suit making him shiver. Scrooge passes by once, then comes back with a blanket and throws it at him without a word. He doesn’t say  _ sorry I bet with your life _ but Donald never even thought to expect him to, and he doesn’t even acknowledge his Uncle throughout the interaction. Just like old times.

Except in the old times, Donald couldn’t vanish an entire casino into the void- which, no, that wasn’t quite right. He just… he paused it’s power source, it’s battery, and turned off all the… everything. He stopped Gladstones magic, he clamped down on it so hard he kept it from even pulsing with his heartbeat, he halted it completely- and Liu Hai had suddenly and unexpectedly lost his one source of power. The casino was a construct of that magic, and with his power dramatically reduced he’d been unable to form the details that gave it life, forming a blank black void- what the cage truly looked like without all the fluff- instead of the vibrant illusion. A big trap. That explained why it felt like he was walking through a barrier when they first came inside. All the pieces were there, but he didn’t have the proper context to put them all together. He frowns at the clouds he can see through the window, worrying the edge of the blanket until it frays.

Eventually, they get home.

The moment they step onto familiar ground, Donald feels the exhaustion settle into his bones. He’s tired, mentally and physically, he’s stretched a muscle he didn’t even know he had and the strain is imprinting itself onto his feathers. He hugs the kids goodnight and trudges out to the houseboat, taking a moment to savor the subtle rocking beneath his feet before he descends into the living room. He knows he should go to sleep, he wants to go to sleep, but he can’t stop thinking. He busies himself by making a cup of hot water that he’d intended to make tea with, but there’s no tea left so he ends up pouring it down the drain.

And then without really thinking about it he’s filled with a sharp jab of fury and just turns around and hauls the mug against the wall, shattering it. He’s like,  _ one _ more traumatic experience from having a full mental breakdown. So that’s nice. He runs a hand down his face and finds he’s just… not quite done processing the days events yet, is all. The mug wasn’t important, plain white, something he’d gotten from a thrift store probably and he cleans it up with a headache forming.

There were just too many variables, too many things he  _ doesn’t know _ , especially about himself. He’d been experimenting with his magic with some of his Uncles magical artifacts, learning how to differentiate magic frequencies- but it was a spur of the moment thing that revealed he could quite literally stop someone elses magic altogether. What more did he not know about it? About what he could do? An Idea forming, he headed up to his hammock and finally convinced sleep to take him.

In the morning, Donald drove himself over to the money bin under the guise of job hunting, waiting for the elevator so he could ride up to the archives. Uncle Scrooge's own personal collection was a library of Alexandria of sorts, with all kinds of books ranging from every topic under the sun- except maybe how to keep your niece from disappearing into the stars (Donald winces at the thought, grimacing to himself.) He nods placatingly to the woman working there as she dramatically introduces him to her floor of the bin despite the fact that he’d proved himself years ago, and makes a bee line for where he knew Scrooge kept his books on magic. It was a section all on it’s own, secluded and tucked away from the normal books for fear of contamination. It was under heavy security considering the sensitive topics many of the books covered, and Donald was certain he wouldn’t be able to walk out with one, which was fine. He drags a chair and a table over, grabs a few from the shelf, and gets to work.

He bypasses all the books he knows won’t help him. He’d poured over a few of them with Della and Uncle Scrooge years ago, trying to study Magica to get an upper hand on the witch. Instead he goes for those detailing different kinds of magic developed, and how powers manifest. He flips through several books with nothing about his situation and sighs deeply, it would be just his luck that he gets stuck with a type of magic never seen before, with no way to learn other than trial and error.

It’s late by the time he works his way through the books he’d chosen so he puts them all back in their proper place and makes the arduous ride home.

He has dinner with his family, and watching a movie with his boys before it’s bedtime and he thinks they may be trying to cheer him up from what they perceive as another day without scoring a job. Although he lets them stay up a bit later than normal, enjoying the time together to unwind, Eventually he sends them off to bed.

Donald doesn’t bother, however, and once they all disappear up the stairs he moves through the mansion like a ghost as silently as he can, avoiding all the floorboards he knows creak, and heads straight for the garage.

Trial and error. He can do that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's safe to say this will be a few chapters longer than the original


End file.
